Exclude webpages and apps

Just as you can target placements in the Google Display Network to show your ads – like specific pages, sites, mobile apps, and video – you can also exclude placements where you don't want your ads to show. In particular, you might exclude websites or domains that aren’t appropriate for your brand and that aren’t helping you sell your products or services.

Types of placements you might exclude

Example

A travel agency has an ad group that features family camping packages and targets topics like Hiking & Camping. The agency notices that some of their ads are showing on automatic placements that are relevant to the topic but not kid-friendly. They can exclude those placements from the ad group.

You can exclude placements from specific ad groups and campaigns from the Display Network tab.

Go to your Display Network tab and click + Targeting, which is located above the graph.

Select an ad group.

Click either the “Add ad group exclusions” or “Add campaign exclusions” drop-down menu and select “Placements."

Type a placement in the box, entering just one placement per line. You can exclude up to 10,000 placements per campaign. Note: You don't need to exclude a placement if it's located outside the target region for your ad. No matter where a site is located, your ad will be shown only to visitors located in the regions you've targeted.

Using the correct format for your exclusions

There are different types of URLs for different types of websites. From mobile apps to specific product pages, each type of property has a specific address format. Expand the sections below to see how to enter the addresses for each type of placement.

There are several methods for excluding placements: by domain, subdomain, path name, or individual pages, but not multi-level domains. In general, excluding domains will prevent your ads from appearing on any page on or within that domain, while entering subdomains or paths will only prevent your ads from appearing on any page on or within that subdomain or path, respectively.

Example

Cheryl’s company sells organic household cleaning products, and she would like to show their ads only on closely related placements. She targets a popular product review website, and adds a site exclusion for the website paths about food gadgets and home appliances so that her ads don’t appear on those pages. By refining where her ads appear, she can show them to the most interest potential customers.

The format of each entry on your site exclusion list determines how AdWords filters sites. Here are some examples of how to exclude domains and format these exclusions:

Level

Exclusion

Top-level domain name

example.com
Use this format if you'd prefer that your ads be excluded from a particular domain and its subdomains, directory names, individual pages, and so on.

Due to the dynamic nature of the Display Network, we can't guarantee that you'll exclude 100 percent of related pages when you exclude a category. In our tests, however, we've found that excluding a category reduces exposure to related pages by approximately 90 percent.

For "Display Network - All features" campaigns, you can exclude specific apps in the Shared library, under campaign exclusions. For those types of exclusions, the format is "adsenseformobileapps.com/" followed by the app ID for iOS apps, or the package name for Android apps. For example:

For Display Network campaigns that specifically target the Google AdMob network of apps, you can add individual mobile apps as ad group or campaign placement exclusions:

"Display Network only - Mobile app installs"

"Display Network only - Ads in mobile apps"

"Display Network only - Mobile app engagement"

To exclude individual apps in one of these campaign types, follow steps 1-3 above to exclude specific placements. Once you've selected Placements under "Ad group exclusions" or "Campaign exclusions", follow the steps below:

Next to "Mobile app categories," click Search all apps.

Enter your placement exclusions in one of the formats shown below, or type the name of the app into the search bar, and click Search.

iPhone: To exclude iPhone apps, format your placement exclusion with “mobileapp::1-” followed by the iOS appstore ID which is the series of digits in the App store URL identified. For example, to exclude the LabPixies LineUp 2 app, you’d enter mobileapp::1-476954712.

Android apps: To exclude Android apps, format your placement exclusion with “mobileapp::2-” followed by the Android app package name which is the last part of the Google Play URL after the “=” symbol. For example, to exclude the LabPixies ColorDrips game app you’d enter mobileapp::2-com.labpixies.colordrips.

Select the app you'd like to exclude from your targeting, and click the box to add it to your placement exclusions.

You can prevent your ads from showing on specific Google sites the same way you exclude your ads from other sites on the Display Network. To prevent your ads from showing in Gmail, exclude mail.google.com.

Note

Excluding placements is different from removing them. When you exclude placements, you’re blocking your ads from showing there. When you remove placements you’re targeting, your ad could still show there based on other targeting methods you have in your ad group – like keywords or topics.

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